The invention relates to a data storage device which can be used to establish a risk analysis procedure for prostate cancer, a method for determining a dependency of risk for prostate cancer, and to a device for indicating risk for prostate cancer to an individual. The invention further relates to a device for indicating risk for a disease of an individual. The invention further relates to a method for indicating risk for a disease of an individual.
In the art of medicine, prevention of diseases is desirable because this may reduce suffering and costs compared to curing diseases. Accordingly, screening programs, such as for breast cancer, have been established with the purpose of diagnosing and, optionally, treating a person carrying a disease before this person actually becomes ill.
A disadvantage of these screening programs is that they require performing medical tests on the individual involved. Due to the inherent shift to the diagnosis in earlier stages, the screening programs lead to overdiagnosis, i.e. persons being tested positive and hence being treated while in fact no threatening disease is present.
Although databases are known which allow a determination of the risk for diseases such as prostate cancer, these do not provide a reliable estimate of the risk for various reasons. This lack of reliability causes an unnecessary amount of medical tests and eventually treatments in individuals with in fact only a small risk of ever experiencing the symptoms or dying of the disease. Another disadvantage of the known methods to determine the risk, is that an individual cannot determine this risk of being susceptible to the disease by himself, but has to consult medical expert knowledge.